Mennonite Weekly Review

Mennonites love Matt. 25:31-46. I memorized much of it for a skit when I was a Goshen College student. Jesus’ teaching couldn’t be much clearer: The mark of righteousness is giving food to the hungry, water to the thirsty and clothing to the naked.

Lyndaker Schlabach

This biblical call is at the heart of much of Mennonite Central Committee’s work. In Ethiopia, for example, MCC is providing assistance to 6,000 chronically hungry families through a food and cash-for-work program. The project aims to improve agricultural practices and build house- hold savings.

Over the years, MCC has learned much about what makes food and agriculture projects more likely to succeed. Local communities must be empowered to identify their own needs and have ownership in the process. And agricultural practices must be sustainable and suited to the local context.

This spring the Obama admin- istration announced a plan to combat global hunger. It’s called Feed the Future. The initiative carries a price tag of $3.5 billion over the next three years. It identifies 20 focus countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Bangladesh and Haiti.

After years of declining interest and funds to address world hunger, many advocates welcomed the announcement. A number of the plan’s features are noteworthy. It focuses on under-nutrition and improving access to diverse, high-quality foods. The initiative stresses aid effectiveness and accountability. And it recognizes the importance of women, who produce between 60 to 80 percent of the food in most developing countries.

Feed the Future is also country-led, meaning that it follows agriculture plans developed by low-income countries. This is a positive shift away from plans imposed by Western institutions. But government-led plans do not always reflect the wishes of average citizens. The U.S. should stress that the voices of women and small-holder farmers be reflected in each country’s plan.

Fundamentally, however, Feed the Future seems blind to the way in which it puts U.S. interests, and particularly U.S. corporate interests, first. It talks about making crops more productive but fails to ac- knowledge that U.S. agribusinesses focus on high-cost biotech “solutions” that will earn them money, when often a local solu- tion is more sustainable and less costly.

It also talks about expanding trade markets but does not address the fact that U.S. trade policy often undercuts farmers in developing countries. Equally important is the need for small farmers to be able to grow their own food, rather than being forced to grow cash crops on a large scale for export.

Even the seemingly generous act of providing U.S. emergency food aid can be harmful to small farmers overseas. The U.S. is starting to purchase more food locally, which is much more time- and cost-efficient, but there is still a long way to go.

Finally, Feed the Future does not address the issue of commodity speculation, which was a major factor in the global food crisis of 2008. Financial traders in wealthy countries artificially drove up the price of corn and other staple foods, affecting the lives of millions around the globe.

The ways to address global hunger are well-known. Sustainable agriculture, carried out by local communities that are empowered and supported, is not flashy. Nor are the policies needed to support it.

But it would go the farthest in helping to ensure that the hungry are fed. Which is, after all, the stated goal of Feed the Future. Not to mention Matthew 25.

Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach directs the Mennonite Central Committee Washington Office.